


Trans Rights Are Zombie Rights

by wordbending



Category: Zombieland Saga (Anime)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Gen, Reconciliation, Trans Female Character, all the girls in minor roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Lily Hoshikawa is just a little girl - no more and no less.





	Trans Rights Are Zombie Rights

Lily Hoshikawa is just a little girl - no more and no less. When the music stops and the stage is put away, that’s all she is, that’s all she ever will be, and even she can recognize that fact. No matter how old she gets, she’ll never really mature. She’ll never be a grown-up, as effortlessly beautiful as Yugiri, as kind as Sakura, as brave as Ai and Junko.

Deep in thought about this, she curls her legs up to her chest. When she was a child - or, rather, when she was alive as one, she’d never wanted to grow up. She had only wanted to make her Pappy happy, to smile and laugh with him forever. She’d only dreamed, in secret, that one day she’d be the woman she’d always admired and envisioned. And that, when that happened, she’d still be just as cute.

And if she grew up, then one day, maybe... Pappy would have stopped calling her _that_ name. He would have accepted her fully as his daughter, rather than thinking that she was just performing an act, that she was a “boy” going through a “phase.” He would have loved her for who she really was - Lily.

Abruptly, her thoughts are interrupted by what sounds like the stomping of a bull in an antique store, followed by a whole lot of people shouting things like “You can’t go backstage, sir!” and “You’re not allowed in here!” Then the shouts become violent crashes, until her door flies open and a security guard is _literally_ being thrown into her room. He crashes into a table, unconscious.

She’s not scared. She knows who it is even before she stares silently at the enormous, scarred man standing in her doorway. But her heart still threatens to literally burst out of her chest, as it sometimes does. With as much calm as she can muster, she smiles and says to him, “You can’t be back here, sir.”

With heavy, stomping footsteps and an unreadable expression, he approaches her. She gulps and thinks about yelling for help from security, or better yet, her friends. Saki would beat him up for sure. Just one kick in the head - ka-pow! - and she wouldn’t have to deal with anything he’s about to say.

She opens her mouth to start yelling, but he’s already right in front of her, crouched all the way down to something closer to her height. He has a smile on his face, and his eyes are watering, the beginning of tears forming in the corners.

“ _You’re_ my child.”

Her entire body trembles as she struggles to form her voice. She grips her hands together tightly in her lap, hoping it will make her trembling less obvious. “But I’m... not. I’m not. I’m number six. O-OK? Number six. You aren’t... you aren’t my Pappy.”

He smiles wider. Tears are flowing down his cheeks. “My daughter... she used to call me that too.”

She feels, at the word _daughter,_ a giddy sense of joy rush through her. But she can’t let that show - she can’t reveal to him that she’s a zombie, so she tries everything she can to bury that joy down deep.

“I was a terrible father,” the man continues. “She told me she wanted to be a girl when she was only four. When she was five, she said her name was Lily now.” His smile fades. “But I... never accepted it. I never called her the right things. When she was alive, I pushed her too hard - tried to make her the greatest child star in all of Japan. But I never showed her _love,_ not truly. Even after she passed away, even then... I still called her the wrong name.”

She can’t take the words he’s saying anymore. Every new word feels like she’s been stabbed in her heart. She desperately blurts out, tears rolling down her own cheeks and smearing her makeup, “Why? Why are you telling me this _now?”_

“Because my daughter deserves to know,” he says. “That I was wrong. That I did love her. That I will _always_ love her. And that I’m sorry... that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me most.”

“Pappy,” Lily cries out, before jumping to her feet and tackling her father in a hug. “ _Pappy! Pappy!”_

“Lily-chan,” he responds, smiling as he lifts her into the air in a bone-crushing hug. Lily, hearing her name said by her father, cries even harder, the tears flowing all over his shirt. His own tears fall onto her blue hair. “My daughter. My daughter!”

“Pappy, I missed you... I missed you so much,” Lily sobs, smearing her makeup even worse when she tries to wipe away the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry for what, Lily-chan?”

She swallows. There’s no turning back now. Now that he knows who she is, she has to tell him. “That... I died.”

He looks at her and she can see, reflected in her eyes, that her makeup is smeared and ruined, in spite of the “waterproof” spray that jerk Kotaro had sprayed right in her face. There’s no denying now that she’s the walking dead.

“I don’t know how you’re alive, Lily-chan,” he admits. “I... scattered your ashes myself. Over your room, like I thought you would have wanted. That you’re here now... it’s some kind of miracle.”

“I don’t know how either, Pappy,” she says, not wanting to say that she isn’t technically alive at all. She shoots him a smile and wags her fingers at him. “Promise. You. Won’t. Tell?”

He laughs. “I promise. Your secret is safe with me.” He smiles brightly. “Ah, I can’t wait for us to go home again. To watch TV together, like we did all those years ago, to go to the park, to...”

Lily frowns. She wants that too - she wants that so much - but...

“I can’t go back with you, Pappy. I’m sorry.” She wants to say that it’s because she’s a zombie, but she can’t bear to admit that to him, even if it’s obvious. Instead, she says, smiling, “I’m an idol, you know?”

“I... I know,” he says softly, or at least as softly as his deep, baritone voice can go. “It was just wishful thinking. Knowing you’re alive... but that we can’t be together... is heartbreaking. But... I will always support you. I’ll attend all your shows, and when I can’t, I’ll watch them on TV. You’re my greatest treasure, Lily-chan. Us being apart doesn’t change how much I love you.”

Lily grins and hugs him tightly around the neck. “I love you too, Pappy.”

He laughs again and kisses her on the forehead, and it’s just like when she was alive, and the two of them start to cry all over again... but, this time, it’s out of pure, simple joy.

* * *

As Takeo Go leaves the dressing room, his cheeks still wet with tears, he finds himself surrounded by an army of young girls, alongside one older man wearing, for some reason, sunglasses indoors. Takeo blinks down at them all, surprised - it takes him a moment to register the girls as the ones from the concert.

“T-thank you, Takeo-san,” says one of the girls, a red-head. “For supporting Lily-san.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” says a girl with silver-white hair.

“It is an honor to meet the esteemed Lily-han’s father,” says a mature-looking woman with her brown hair in a bun.

“Honor, my butt!” shouts a loud, excitable girl with blonde hair colored red and green. “If you hadn’t supported Lily, I would have _kicked your ass!”_

“Funny, coming from the girl who laughed at her old name...” mutters a girl with blue hair darker than Lily’s.

“Can it, you!”

“Urrrrrgh.... arrrrrrgh....” moans a strange girl with long black hair, which Takeo can only assume means “Thank you.”

“You have my thanks as well,” says the sunglasses-wearing man man with a brush of his hair. “You did a great thing for Lily today.” He reaches out and shakes Takeo’s hand. Takeo quietly shakes it back, unsure what to make of any of this. “Girls! Tell the man thank you!”

“W-we did...” mutters the redhead.

“ _Do it again!”_

All at once, all five of the girls bow, and four of them say “Thank you, Go-san!” The black-haired one only moans.

Back in the dressing room, Lily giggles to herself. She’s so happy. So happy to have such supportive friends, who love her and care about her and see her for who she is. So happy to have a father who truly accepts her, even if they can’t live together anymore. She couldn’t have asked for a better gift than today.

At that moment, a man moans and lifts himself off the table he was thrown into ten minutes earlier. He takes one look at Lily and screams.

“EEK!” Lily screams back. “Get out of my room!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Ivy for betaing this fic!


End file.
